What do you do when your livelihood- your means of employment- is wrecking your body? I am sitting in Dr. Camphos office waiting to see him for the first time ever. He is an ENT- Ear/Nose/Throat specialist. I look around the room, and see an ad stuck up on the wall behind me for Botox. …
If you want pure, unadulterated honesty- the kind of honesty that will bring you to your knees or send you into fits of laughter, step inside a Kindergarten classroom. The concept was invented for four and five-year olds. I had a student once who shared with me what her mother wore to bed at night. …
How to teach appreciation? I am at a loss, by times… Second-Youngest Daughter came home from school today and mentioned, in an off-hand way, that she had shared her lunch with one of the boys in her Grade 3 class who had only had a bag of Cheesies stashed away inside his lunchbag. When Husband …
I love a rainy day. Those days spent inside four sturdy walls, cozily tucked away from the demands of the outside world- contentedly busy with life within. And when life within is peaceful, there is no place I’d rather be. Than here. Home. I have thought a lot lately about joy and purpose and living …
I like to think I am intelligent, thoughtful, curious, bright. But today, I realized that even those who think they are the smart ones have a little foolish going on. For starters. I have not yet been able to remember and sort out the right names for the seven students in my room. That’s right- …
We are in spiral down mode. Life as it could be, as it should be, has disintegrated to become life as we now know it: disastrous. Another typical supper hour at the Gard household. One child has exercised her right to blow out her vocal chords at the ripe old age of five. They should …
There are moments upon moments when I feel pulled in ten different directions and the elastic band that holds my soul, snaps. And when that happens, I just have to laugh at myself. Soul exposed. Transparency at its very best. Or worst. I am making beds. At 9:15 p.m., to be precise. What is the …
It has been one of those days where I could just lay on the bed and cry about the gloominess of it all. I feel like Eeyore. I have misplaced an essential: my ability to feel the joy. And when that happens, one is left with two choices: recoil or embrace. Cry or laugh. So …
Not quite sure how to feel about a twelve-year old son who now reads the Globe and Mail on his i-pod. I am thinking that I need to daily start reading the newspaper just to keep up with his brilliant mind. I don’t want it to come to the place where his mother knows less …
We have a life light, shining outward from the soul- that compels us, in different ways and through various methods, to move forward. Beyond. That insists we “keep-on-keeping-on”. That urges us to place one foot in front of the other and move into the future. That causes us to not stand idle for longer than …
If anyone had told me three years ago I would be teaching kindergarten, I would have politely laughed at them. If anyone had told me three years ago I would be teaching kindergarten, and one of my students would be my charming little M.A., I would have (politely) laughed at them and then high-tailed it …
First day of school bloopers: I got called Mrs. Wood (which ran a close second to “what’s your name again???”) all day. I think it was the “smell ya later” that the infamous D.W. (our vivacious former Vice-principal) said on her way out the kindergarten door, that really stuck with them. As I was on …